


germ apocalypse, except not even

by affectionateTea



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 3 Year Boat!stuck, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, EctoSibs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/affectionateTea/pseuds/affectionateTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years is a long time, and with all the consorts blowing bubbles at you all the time and the close quarters you are all crammed pretty often… well, germs tend to abound.<br/>Generously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	germ apocalypse, except not even

**Author's Note:**

> saw some prompts, one about [siblings](http://get-scribbling.tumblr.com/post/27489445880/write-about-siblings-do-they-get-along-argue) and one about a conversation in a [bathroom](http://awesomewritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/27485175761/writing-prompt-525-potty-time), and this happened. It’s canon-compliant, i’m p sure, with some of my headcanons thrown in i guess.

You really wish the germs weren’t _quite_ as into sharing as they seem to be.

You’ve had a long-standing appointment of sorts with illness; it got really antsy if you stayed away for too long, and would make a habit of paying you a nice, long visit if you did. Illness was also rather forward! It would invite itself over to your place and stick to you like Dave’s sunglasses to dork (hehehe see what you did there? ‘Cause Dave is a total dork) and wouldn’t leave until its welcome had been totally and completely worn out and you had to throw it out on its ass and clean up the mess it left behind. Which was pretty much the actual worst.

Okay, you have obviously been spending way too much time around Dave, because that metaphor got away from you. Like, big time!

Your point being, you are currently in the bathroom, kneeling in front of the porcelain bowl of the toilet, with your forehead resting on the edge because the coolness is heavenly and you’re pretty sure if you move your stomach will resume attempting to turn itself inside out, which is helpful to no one, and distinctly uncomfortable. You are very happy with your stomach the way it is.

You’ve been praying hard to yourself, trying to make yourself believe that because it’s the middle of the night that the others are asleep, that they won’t notice you gone for a couple hours (because you have to tell yourself this is only going to be a couple hours, then you’ll feel loads better, you have to, because right now you feel like barf — wow, okay, bad word to choose nope not good, stomach, please stop doing that) and you really, _really_ don’t want anyone to see you like this.

You feel awful. You’re all clammy and pale and sweaty, and you probably stink, and your breath, well. Don’t need to go into detail there!

And you know it’ll pass, it’s probably just a virus, and you really don’t want to get the others sick. Dave has enough to deal with without some stupid disease — if he can even get sick, now that you think about it — and you’re not sure what you’d do without your ectoSis being all happy and energetic all the time. You tease her and tell her it’s annoying, but you rely on it to counter the moods Dave can get into. You don’t blame him, not at all! But you’re pretty sure that if both of you were sick, he would go curl up into a pile of twigs somewhere and just. Stay there. And sulk, like the big baby he is.

You and Jade often find him doing just that, but he usually perks up and comes willingly enough when you tempt him with video games or a jam session (you guys all totally suck, especially Jade oh my god does she even know what the finger holes on a flutedo??but she’s not half bad with her bass, and it’s loads of fun nonetheless. Also if you’re honest with him, Dave is actually pretty good with his turntables. Not that you’ll ever admit it to his face, no way! You’d never hear the end of it).

So when you hear soft footsteps coming down the hall, you lament the fact that you left the light on, but you aren’t really surprised. Not with how poorly you all seem to be able to sleep.

You just send a small word of thanks up to the Higher Powers (every time you think that, all you can do is imagine Karkat scowling down at you and having a rage aneurism and you can’t help but giggle in a very unmanly fashion, but you don’t care because you’ve got the necessary mangrit to outweight the occasional giggle session and laughing at Karkat will never get old) that it’s Jade, judging by the pitterpatter of feet (you swear you can sometimes here a soft _clack_ that sounds distinctly like dog claws against tile, seriously, it’s kinda weird) and your assumption is confirmed when you hear a soft voice call, “John?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” you groan, not bothering to mask the utter misery you feel. Jade would see through it in a second, anyway.

“Can I come in?? John, you sound horrible!” Jade barely hesitates at all before gently pushing the door open just enough so she can slide inside. “Oh nooo, are you not feeling well?”

“What are you talking about, Jade, I feel completely fine. Terrific. I’ll just go fly around and do cartwheels in the sky, that is how totally awesome I am currently feeling! In front of the toilet, in the middle of the night.” You say all this with a few wild gestures of your hands, but your forehead stays firmly where it is, drawing relief from the now-slightly-less-cold porcelain bowl.

“You don’t gotta get all snippy with me, mister,” Jade scolds, but there’s a soft amusement to her voice and you know she’s not mad or anything. You would regret giving her grief, but it really was a dumb question. Seriously, look at you!

“Alright, you rest there and don’t you dare move until I come back!” Jade blurts suddenly, disappearing with a soft _whoosh_ and a swirl of black that seems to twist around her for a fraction of a second and pull at the air, and then she’s gone before you can get out a reply.

“Like I’m going anywhere,” you mumble to the floor anyway.

  


* * *

  


You’re just about to make a noble attempt at rising to your feet because the nausea has finally subsided a bit when Jade returns.

“Hey, you were about to move, weren’t you! What did I say?? Huh?”

You cringe a little at the real anger you hear around the edges of her words as she towers over you.

“I just wanna sleep, Jade,” you mutter, hanging your head.

She huffs a little, and then seems to relent, holding out a mug. “This is supposed to be good for settling stomachs, have a sip. Slowly. And here,” she says, pulling some tablets out of her pocket. “These, too,” she says, dumping a couple in your palm. “Go on!”

She’s looking at you expectantly, so while you don’t generally like taking things when you don’t know what they are, it’s Jade, so you just shrug internally and toss them into your mouth, taking a sip from the mug to wash it down, and are pleasantly surprised at the cool, soothing feel of the beverage against your burning throat.

“Hey, not half bad,” you mumble, and she takes the mug back from you with a satisfied smirk.

“I told you! Now c’mon, let’s get you into bed so you can sleep it off.” She pulls your arm over her shoulders so you can put some of your weight on her, and it’s only her steadiness that makes you realize you’d been swaying slightly. You’re thankful she doesn’t try to warp you back to your room, because you’re pretty sure your stomach could not handle the squeezing pressure of her Spacey Thing. So the two of you trudge slowly along the hallway, down the couple corridors to the room you’ve claimed as your own.

You give a soft groan when you enter and there’s Dave, curled up in a chair with his tail wrapped around him, holding a book.

“Jaaade…” you groan, knowing that she must’ve got him earlier while she was off making that mug of miracle stomach stuff. Which you appreciate, really, but did she have to wake Dave?

“He was already up and asking after you! I think we all had pretty bad ones today.” She gets quiet toward the end of her sentence, and you give Dave a sympathetic grimace. You all get pretty nasty nightmares, and you’ve found that sleeping in each others’ presence tends to help. A lot. So you often go looking for each other in the middle of the night.

“Y’know, I don’t see why we don’t just share a room,” Jade continues, back to her usual self, as she helps you hobble over to the bed. You still feel sweaty and gross, but you’re not quite as hot as you were before, and your stomach is not churning the way it was earlier. You feel much better as you lean back against the pillows and slide under the covers.

“Ugh, Jade. We’ve talked about this. We all need our own space! This boat is huge, what is even the point of sharing a room when we’ve got, like, a gajillion?”

But you notice Dave sort of staring into his lap, and Jade is still looking at you, not saying anything, and you think that maybe you’re the only one who thinks that way. You suppose it would be nice, to not have to wander the cold halls nearly every night, alone, looking for them, freaked out by visions of people close to you, lying on the ground, their blood everywhere…

“But I guess it makes more sense to be nearby,” you amend quietly, and Jade gives you a huge grin and throws her arms around your neck with a whoop of joy that sounds a whole lot like a bark.

You glance over at Dave, and he’s looking in your direction — you think so, at least, you aren’t always sure with the damn shades — but his mouth is upturned just slightly at the corners, and now you feel like a dick for suggesting everyone have their own room. You’d figured that everyone should have a place they can go to chill on their own, that was theirs, because sometimes it’s just too much and you need to think. You guess maybe you’d been wrong.

“Aight, sit back and relax, Egbarf, it’s story time,” Dave practically chirps, and you roll your eyes at him.

“Oh no, you’re going to do dumb voices, aren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way, wouldja, Jade?” Dave looks over at her, and she giggles.

“Not a chance!” She curls up next to you, and you lay your head on her shoulder and let your eyelids droop as Dave begins reading obnoxiously from _Lord of the Flies_. Where the fuck he found _Lord of the Flies_ on this ship, you have no idea, but you find you couldn’t care less as you slowly drift off to sleep, Jade a warm and comforting presence beside you, Dave’s voice making the characters come to life in your head and taking your mind off of your new headache that you feel building behind your eyes, and still-squirming stomach.

You think, as you’re drifting off quite content into dreamland despite your symptoms, that you could definitely have worse buddies to be stuck on a boat with for three years.


End file.
